SHANGHAI, China — There’s not been a lot about the officiating at this FIBA World Cup that has made Nick Nurse smile, but the outburst from the Lithuanian head coach Saturday night managed to do just that.

Dainius Adomaitis did not go quietly when Lithuania’s tournament ended with a loss to France on Saturday night.

The fiery head coach took the podium post-game and launched into a tirade about the lack of capable officiating in the tournament. Still livid over the refereeing in a loss to Australia that prevented them from winning the Group of Death, Adomaitis then looked on helplessly as officials botched an obvious goaltending infraction on Frenchman Rudy Gobert as he connected with the cylinder as he was knocking away Jonas Valanciunas’ free throw in the dying seconds of a game that would have given Lithuania a lead.

Instead, France took the ball the other way and sealed the game with a Nando de Colo bucket.

The Lithuanians sent an official protest to FIBA which reviewed the play and admitted a mistake was made. FIBA’s response was to take away any remaining games the officials involved were to call in the tournament, but that doesn’t change the result for Lithuanian, a team that has been together two months preparing for this tournament.

Adomaitis made sure he had his say before he left, calling the officiating at the FIBA level “a f—ing joke.”

Nurse seemed to be in full agreement with Adomaitis’ assertions.

“It’s awesome,” Nurse said. “He’s 100% right, he’s 100% right. It’s a travesty most of it is. We’ve (Canada) had the same ref three games in a row (Bulgarian Martin Horozov). “There’s 84 f—ing countries that they draw from for referees, and we’ve had the same ref three f—ing games in a row?”

STILL KEEPING TABS

Nurse and his team are 12 full hours ahead of everything going on back home in Canada but that did not keep Canada’s head coach from catching the final set of Canadian tennis sensation Bianca Andreescu’s U.S. Open win earlier Sunday morning in Shanghai.

“I watched it this morning, well, I think I watched it late,” Nurse said. “The texts had already started coming in, and I was like ‘I gotta check in on CNN or whatever’… Set two was just starting, so I got to watch set two. It was good.”

Nurse was impressed with Andreescu’s fight.

“Yeah awesome, everybody’s excited, and it was really good to see her take the charge and kind of re-assert herself at the end. It was great,” Nurse said. “She’s got some swag.”

Asked about assertions that Andreescu’s win might trump the Raptors’ NBA championship run in terms of Canadian high points for the year, Nurse refused to be baited.

“I think they’re both great, I don’t think you have to pick either one,” he said. “I just think it’s really cool. And I know she’s going to get a lot of love, if it’s anything like what we’ve got, she’s going to get a lot of love for years to come.

LOOKING AHEAD TO GERMANY

The focus of the German team all tournament has been scoring point guard Dennis Schroder and Nurse says it’s no secret who Canada’s weapon against Schroder will be.

“Certainly he’s a focal point, super quickness and super speed that we’ve got to worry about, and we’ll have to have multiple coverages ready for him and multiple defenders ready for him, like with any great player really.”

But while the focus on Germany is at the point guard position their bigs which include NBA players like Daniel Theis (Boston) and Max Kleber (Dallas) pose an issue as well.

“It’s a little bit like Lithuania where they’re big all over, it’s like they’ve got 4s and 5s playing at the 3 and 2 it seems like,” Nurse said. “So yeah, we’ll have to again focus on the rebounding and just the overall fighting for the ball within eight to 10 feet of the basket.“

QUICK HITS: Canada have lost their last 20 games played against a European team in the FIBA Basketball World Cup. Their last win against a team from Europe was in 1986 against the Netherlands … The 29 points by Kyle Wiltjer in his last game against Jordan is the most for a Canadian player in a FIBA Basketball World Cup game since Kory Hallas in 1994 when he had 31 against Argentina … Germany have lost eight of their last nine games played against teams from the Americas in the FIBA Basketball World Cup, but the last two have been decided by less than five points.